American Fruit Dessert. Is It a Crisp, a Crunch, a Slump, a Grunt or a Buckle?

Writing about Aunt Sarah and her Cherry Pudding the other day, got me thinking about all that enormous variety of American Fruit Dessert and which ones were most common in our family. As part of the parsimonious nature of our rural foremothers, nothing could go to waste. So there had to be lots of fruit recipes. You couldn’t use all of them up in jams and jellies, after all, and after a while you wanted a change from pies.

By the way, I was chastised for saying that Aunt Sarah’s cherry pudding is not really a pudding because in Brit-speak any dessert is pudding. I still maintain that in British English you might call it pudding, but you wouldn’t necessarily say “cherry pudding.”

Confession: my motivation for talking about Aunt Sarah’s cherry pudding was that I had bought more cherries than I could eat and they were going to go to waste if I didn’t cook them. Like great-grandmother, like great-granddaughter.

Stained, taped together Joy of Cooking (1997)

Although I paged through a bunch of old recipe books for traditional fruit desserts, the most complete answers came in Joy of Cooking 7th Edition (1997 edition by Erma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker), which is as much a research tool as a cookbook. This edition was updated by Ethan Becker and lost some of the traditional recipes of the Rombauers, so I kept a previous edition (1964) on hand. I’ve worn both of them out. On page 894, you can find a whole section called American Fruit Desserts.

These American fruit dessert recipes all combine some sort of dough–usually close to biscuit or pie dough– and any kind of fruit you have on hand. As Joy says, “These desserts seem descended from puddings on one side and pies on the other.” In essence pretty much anything goes, and every new version seems to get a new name.

So here goes, a short primer. **Indicates some family favorites of the American Fruit Dessert.

American Fruit Dessert

Apple Pandowdy (We usually think of Apple Pandowdy as a pioneer recipe, but other fruits can be used).

Boiled fruit with a biscuit or pie dough crust surrounding the fruit. Traditionally sweetened with molasses or cider. Sometimes the crust is broken toward the end of cooking and partially submerged in the fruit juices.

Deep dish with single crust on top, but sometimes the biscuit-like dough goes on the bottom

Crisps

Like Brown Betty, except the crumbs all go on top.

**Crumble

According to Joy, the British refer to crisps or crumbles made with oatmeal as ‘crumbles.’ It is an entirely appropriate name.This was one of my traditional family favorites, only my mother called it a Brown Betty and. I like to think that this (unwritten) recipe had been passed down for generations from our British ancestors. I must admit I never ever saw mother or grandmother use breadcrumbs in a dessert.

Crunch

Like Brown Betty, layered, but drier so it comes out like a bar cookie.

**Dumpling

A pouch of dough with fruit inside. This was one of my mothers BEST desserts. She made pie dough, rolled it into a square and piled on sweetened, spiced apple slices. Then she brought the corners up to form a pouch, sprinkled the top with sugar and baked. In a bowl with milk it made a meal.

Grunt

I think my three sons would have laughed me out of the kitchen, had I told them we were having Grunt for dessert. This sounds very British, also. It is a fruit pudding steamed in a mold with a pastry lined mold.

Slump

Grunt’s first cousin, the Slump is fruit cooked with dumplings on top in a covered pan.

**Shortcake

Large sweet biscuits, split and topped with fruit–most commonly strawberries and served with milk, cream or whipped cream. Another of my mother’s specialities. A Strawberry shortcake in each bowl and some slices of cheese and cold meat and call it a meal!

Upside Down Cake

Usually pineapple, but I’ve made a delicious pear upside-down cake, these are best in a cast-iron skillet. Fruit on the bottom with lots of brown sugar and butter for a crust, cake batter on the top,and baked in the oven.

And of course I’m taking for granted pies, tartsand turnovers, all made with pie dough.

Other desserts with foreign roots that have made their way into American favorites:

Kuchen: German for cake, in this case it generally means a fruit-filled yeast dough pastry.

Plum Cake Cockaigne: I’m guessing this is a German dessert, but the only recipes I find for it in a quick search on line are the one called Plum Cake Cockaigne (an imaginary ideal land) in the Joy of Cooking. Works for me. One of my families favorites. I’m sure it is good with other fruits, but so good with plums, why bother? Cake, topped by pretty rows of sliced fruit and a light streusel topping.[Update: I learned in a story about Joy of Cooking, that the Rombauers, authors of the cookbooks, slapped the label “cockaigne” on anything they made up themselves. Made it sound fancy. So I still don’t know the origin, other than the Rombauer family.]

So what is your family’s favorite traditional American Fruit Dessert? Got one I didn’t think of?

And now here’s my take on Joy of Cooking‘s Buckle recipe, my personal favorite of the American Fruit Desserts, in this version, I add a small twist:

About Vera Marie Badertscher

I am a grandma and was named for my grandma. I've been an actress, a political strategist and a writer.I grew up in various places, went to high school in Killbuck, Ohio and graduated from Ohio State University. My husband and I moved to Arizona after graduation and have three adult children. I love to travel and read. I ponder family as I cook. Look for my DNA profile on Ancestry.

2 thoughts on “American Fruit Dessert. Is It a Crisp, a Crunch, a Slump, a Grunt or a Buckle?”

Twitter: kerrydexterliving in the southwest as you do, surely you’ve come across fruit emapandas and enchiladas? another thing — it’s Irish, but still — is barmbrack. sort of a gnger cake/bread with raisons and other fruit in it, often made and served around the winter holidays and at Halloween too.Kerry Dexter would like you to read..Ireland’s music: two voices

Kerry: Absolutely love fruit empanadas. I had not heard of barmbrack, but it is just one more fruit dessert that proves there is no end to cook’s creativity when it comes to using fruit. I tried not to wander away from the strictly American desserts, except for my mention of cafloutis and strudel and “plum cake cockaigne” which I now think is related to a middle-European concoction. (Don’t know why the Joy of Cooking folks called it ‘cockaigne’ and the only web refrences I’ve found to that favorite dish of mine leads back to Joy of Cooking.